We have not said that inorganic raw material is unable to produce organic substance spontaneously, which substance later upbuilds the organism, but for the present this remains an open question to which as yet the materialists have not given an answer. But before we enter the discussion of this extremely important question, we will in this connection mention another discovery of natural science which seems exactly to support the materialistic trend of thought, a fact, therefore, that crowns, so to speak, their whole philosophy. Up to the year 1828 it was thought that organic substance could be created only by the force of life. But Wöhler unexpectedly succeeded in producing organic compositions from inorganic substances, a discovery which was followed by a series of others in the same direction. It is with evident satisfaction that Büchner calls our attention to these facts. In order to show the necessity for assuming a life-force, he says, people have reminded the chemists that they are unable to produce organic compositions, that is, the peculiar grouping of the elements into those ternary and quaternary compounds which owe their existence to an organic being, endowed with life and life-force, and they have added the amusing remark that the chemists must produce living beings in their retorts—make men—if there be no life-force and if life be only the result of chemical processes. The chemists have not been at a loss for an answer. They have made dextrose, several organic acids and bases, and recently they have also succeeded in producing _hydrates of carbon_. Evolution has proceeded rapidly in this direction, and today alcohol and precious perfumes are made from coal, candles from slate, Berlin blue, taurin and innumerable other bodies—formerly believed to be exclusively of animal or plant origin—from the simple material that inorganic nature offers us. The materialists have a custom of not considering themselves under obligation to do more than point to some scientific facts, without investigating whether these facts support their speculations or not. Faithful to this custom, Büchner stops just where his own researches should have commenced. Büchner has not written a textbook on physics or chemistry. He has undertaken the extremely serious task of investigating whether modern natural science has produced results which show that nothing but matter and its forces, and consequently no soul, no eternal life, etc., exist. Our first demand of such an analysis would be, to put it moderately, that the facts cited really prove what they are put forward to prove. But to this demand neither Büchner nor his followers pay any attention. Büchner might, for instance, in regard to the facts last mentioned, have taken the following questions as the starting point for his investigations: